Sunday, August 10, 2014

Online sockpuppetry and real life fakery reigned supreme when a Christian activist admittedly used a fake organization, fake names, and web site to trick the people running Vancouver Pride Parade into letting them march so they could hand out anti-gay pamphlets disguised as Trojan condoms.

How disgusting is this?

Whatcott, who is the executive director of anti-gay group Christian Truth Activists, applied to march in the parade using a pseudonym and a fake society called the Calgary Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster alongside four other evangelical Christians.

They covered up the Gospel Condoms with Trojan condoms (I think) and basically worked the parade route, tricking both parade organizers and the Trojan condom company.

General manager Ray Lam said the Vancouver Pride Society approved the application because there is a legitimate society of a similar name. 'Obviously we're going to have to look at our review process and look at how we can weed out organizations like this in the future.'You can read more here. There are links to the fake web site. Frankly, I know this is easy to say after the fact, but I'm not sure I would have trusted something as ridiculous as that. But who knows? If I were to focus on this topic indirectly I would zoom in on the bigger issue of Internet crime and this kind of fakery. It can happen to anyone. It happens on small scales and large.

Writers Battle Amazon

I think everyone knows the basics about Amazon and big 5 publisher, Hachette. For those who don't, here are a few posts I've done on the topic. Now something new has surfaced: the clichéd "open letter" slamming Amazon and supporting Hachette.

A group of over 900 writers are supporting an open letter written by author, Douglas Preston, about Amazon using writers as "hostages" in negotiations. Preston wrote this letter, get this, from a quiet little town in Maine...where he summers. Before I continue, how many of you genre authors "summer" in Maine...or anywhere else? I'm just throwing it out there, especially to all of you who have been rejected time and again by literary agents, many of whom are also "summering" in Maine right now. Or, those of you writers who never had a chance with a big publisher because gatekeepers kept you out of "their world" based on their subjective taste in books?

In any event, a few more big names jumped on board in their quest to save publishing as THEY'VE always known it:

The letter, composed in the shack, spread through the literary community. As of earlier this week 909 writers had signed on, including household names like John Grisham and Stephen King. It is scheduled to run as a full-page ad in The New York Times this Sunday.

Well, there you are. The New York Times. The epitome of elitism as we've always known it...also a failing venture for the past few years that wouldn't know the meaning of objective journalism if it bit them in the ass. And, you'll love THIS. A group of privileged who can obviously afford to waste their money on advertising in the NYT all contributed to the ad's cost...$104,000. I'm linking to this below so you can see I'm not making that figure up. Imagine what you could do with that kind of money.

Even more interesting, there's another petition in support of Amazon.

The petition has 7,650 signatures. You can read the rest here. I've only covered the basics in this post. After reading about the cost of the ad in the NYT, I can't help thinking how all this reminds me of the old saying about the guy crying poor mouth with two loaves of bread under each arm.

Amazon and Affordable E-Book Prices

I don't have a link here. This information is coming directly from my inbox from an e-mail I received from Amazon as a KDP author. It's very long and I'm not going to share the whole thing. But I did want to show a few parts so readers can see a little more about what this is all about...at least from Amazon's POV. Most of the readers I hear from are not lucky enough to "summer" in Maine. They love to read and they have a bottom line when it comes to e-book prices. And, e-book readers are voracious. Those of us who started out a long time ago in digital first publishing know this and we never take our readers for granted.

After a few lines about how the literary community of the last century shunned paperback books when they first came out, Amazon compares this to how e-books are being received now.

Fast forward to today, and it’s the e-book’s turn to be opposed by the literary
establishment. Amazon and Hachette – a big US publisher and part of a $10
billion media conglomerate – are in the middle of a business dispute about
e-books. We want lower e-book prices. Hachette does not. Many e-books are being
released at $14.99 and even $19.99. That is unjustifiably high for an e-book.
With an e-book, there’s no printing, no over-printing, no need to forecast, no
returns, no lost sales due to out of stock, no warehousing costs, no
transportation costs, and there is no secondary market – e-books cannot be
resold as used books. E-books can and should be less expensive.

There's more about how things change all the time. It's hard for me to dispute any of this because I know, first hand, nothing in the above paragraph is false. In fact, it's all so true I never thought I'd see it printed so openly. But the e-mail ends on this note:

We will never give up our fight for reasonable e-book prices. We know making
books more affordable is good for book culture. We’d like your help. Please
email Hachette and copy us.

Hachette CEO, Michael Pietsch:
Michael.Pietsch@hbgusa.com

Copy us at:
readers-united@amazon.com

Please consider including these
points:

- We have noted your illegal collusion. Please stop working so
hard to overcharge for ebooks. They can and should be less expensive.-
Lowering e-book prices will help – not hurt – the reading culture, just like
paperbacks did.- Stop using your authors as leverage and accept one of
Amazon’s offers to take them out of the middle.- Especially if you’re an
author yourself: Remind them that authors are not united on this
issue.

Thanks for your support.

The Amazon Books Team

P.S.
You can also find this letter at www.readersunited.com
It should be interesting to see how this is going to end.

Here's a side note: The other night I was watching the TV show, House Hunters International, and the young woman on the show was buying a $400,000 apartment in Paris. She mentioned that she works for a large publishing house in New York in one of the "creative" departments. I guess she's not worried about what she pays for e-books. But I couldn't help wondering how many mid-list authors with big publishers who get paid every four months make enough money to buy an apartment in Paris...or, for that matter "summer" in Maine.

Second Chance: The Complete Series

About Me

Ryan
@ryanfield
Hybrid author of over 100 published modern romance novels and stories, including AN OFFICER AND HIS GENTLEMAN, FANGSTERS, THE RAINBOW DETECTIVE AGENCY and best selling VIRGIN BILLIONAIRE SERIES. (The profile photo isn't very good, but it's really me and it's recent from 2017. I'm not supposed to be a photographer. )
RfieldJ@aol.com

Second Chance: His Only Choice

Second Chance: The Sweetest Apple

Cowboy Christmas Miracle Glendora Hill Series

The Littlest Christmas Tree

Book 2 Second Chance Series

Best Seller on Allromanceebooks.com

Bad Boy Billionaire: The Actor Learning to Love

I won't give out any spoilers, but this is the first time I've ever worked the attacks on the World Trade Center into a novel (you can see the twin towers in the background on the cover)...it's also the first time I've ever written a strong lesbian theme into the subplot.

The Women Who Love to Love Gay Romance

An Anthology with Ryan Field Press, release date August 30, 2013...links to follow soon.

Fangsters: Clan of the Jersey Boys

At a glance, Anton Pagano looks and sounds just like any other twenty-something. He lives in a mansion in northern New Jersey with his mom and dad, and he's never had to worry about anything other than his wardrobe, his latest new car, and the secret love affair he's been having for years. However, Anton has more than just the love affair to hide: he belongs to a Sicilian vampire mobster clan that migrated to New Jersey in the late 1800s.

The Wall Street Shark

Third installment of the Bad Boy Billionaire series.

Note to All Readers...

I welcome all comments and e-mails from readers of this blog or readers of my books.

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That Cowboy in the Window

Erotic Gay Romance with a twist.

Chase of a Dream

In this 59,000 word unabridged version of the sequel to "Chase of a Lifetime" that contains all of the original erotic scenes, Jim Darling finally finds the happiness he's been chasing for so long. He and Len Mayfield have settled into a quiet routine in their small newly renovated home in the Hollywood Hills, and they enjoy every minute they spend together raising Len's toddler grandson, Culum Mayfied.

An Officer and His Gentleman

Alyson Books

Ravenous Romance

all romance ebooks

Cleis Press

Pretty Man

Unlike most stories, where the rich and powerful husband dumps the hard working, devoted life partner for someone younger, this one takes a turn in the opposite direction when the rich husband is the one to get dumped. But with young Josh's help, Roland learns in less than a week's time that his future can still hold both earth-shattering sex and a love of real substance.

Whatever, Dude

When a young professional is mistaken for a hooker, the outcome is always shocking.

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I don't post photos or images here unless I'm certain they fall under the guidelines of fair use or public domain. But this blog has been around for a while and even though I've triple checked previous posts for photos and taken down anything questionable, I might have missed something and my intention was not to infringe on anyone's rights. I will continue to update, and all photos I post now will provide attribution of some kind. If not, they are believed to be in the public domain.